Low hedges and edging plants that work – Gareth Carter

Buxus koreana is an excellent small hedge that does not suffer the blight that afflicts the more common box.

• Hedges enhance garden aesthetics, providing privacy, wind protection and defining borders.
• They offer practical benefits, like sheltering plants, adding colour and attracting wildlife.
• Options include flowering, evergreen and edible hedges, with varieties like Liriope, Carex and Buxus koreana.

Hedges and edges often play an important aesthetic role in garden design.

A well-placed hedge can draw the eye along a path, define a border or provide a backdrop that allows feature plants to shine.

In some cases, the hedge itself becomes the feature. Hedges can play an important role in creating privacy and wind protection.

Low hedges, in particular, can be excellent accent plants.

Many gardens evolve gradually. Plants are added over time to soften hard surfaces or fill empty spaces.

Some people enlist a designer, carefully considering space, colour, light and soil.

Others prefer a more spontaneous approach, buying a plant they love and finding a place for it later.

Both methods can create beautiful results.

Hedges and edges can tie a garden together, linking separate areas and carrying a theme throughout.

For every situation there’s a hedge that fits – formal or informal, flowering or evergreen, tall or low.

Beyond structure and style, hedges offer practical benefits.

They can shelter other plants from wind, provide seasonal colour and food, and attract birds and insects.

Small hedges, between 30 and 50cm high, have their own advantages.

Apart from adding charm and structure, they serve practical functions too.

One discovery made while my children were young is that a small hedge can absorb the impact of a stray football, sparing the plants behind it.

Another bonus is that low hedges help hide weeds when time is short.

Creating a defined edge between garden and lawn gives a sense of order and formality.

This clear boundary can be made with a low hedge, or by repeating the same form and colour of a groundcover plant.

Both methods create a visually appealing line that naturally draws the eye.

Small ornamental grasses can also be highly effective for edging.

Their texture, movement and subtle colour variations provide softness and rhythm, blending structure with a touch of informality – a perfect finish for almost any garden style.

Here are some of the options:

Liriope comes in a handful of varieties.

Mainly with deep-green, strap-like leaves, they put on a magnificent display of flowers during the summer months.

Liriope handles sun or shade.

Carex Featherfalls has long, thin, variegated leaves.

The colour contrast in its leaves makes a striking display all year round.

It maintains a small, manageable clump and has feathery flower plumes in the summer months as an added bonus.

Mondo grass has long been used as a garden edging. It often looks best if it is up against a hard edge such as a driveway, a patio area or garden edging.

In other situations, its creeping nature can result in a formal look. It is available in black and green and the texture offers style.

Heuchera are an excellent option for shady areas.

The number of available varieties and the diverse foliage colours offers a lot of opportunities for providing contrast.

They are neat and contained in their clumping growth habit. Constant foliage colour makes these an excellent choice.

Senecio bella grigio translates to “beautiful grey”.

It offers striking silver foliage is so bold it stops you in its tracks.

Unusually for a silver plant, it seems to survive better in a garden where there is some shade offered. It grows about 40cm high by 60cm wide.

For small, compact hedging there is a number of options.

Buxus koreana is an excellent small hedge that does not suffer the blight that afflicts the more common box.

Lonicera is a small-leafed, quick-growing hedge that offers a deep, great colour.

Euonymus has a dense compact habit that is ideal for hedging between 30cm and 1m high. It is faster-growing than the traditional buxus sempervivans (English box), with a similar look.

Corokia Frosted Chocolate and Corokia Geentys Green are two native shrubs that make very easy and medium-sized hedges.

Very hardy and giving a lovely background colour, they are strongly upright and trim well from 50cm up to 2.5m in height.

Edible hedging is another great option.

NZ Cranberry (Myrtus ugni) makes a lovely edible hedge that also produces an amazing fragrance at fruiting time. This can be maintained as a hedge at any height between 30cm and 1.5m.

A larger-growing option as a screen or shelter plant is Griselinia, a great favourite that is coastal-hardy, growing to about 3-5m.

There are also some good options for flowering hedges.

English lavender (such as Munstead Dwarf, Dilly Dilly, Hidcote blue, Grosso and Thumberlina Leigh) put on a good show, with flowers flushing intensely in November and carrying on through the summer months.

Escallonia Fields Scarlet and Escallonia Red Knight are both highly attractive flowering hedges, with red flowers produced pretty much throughout the year and stronger flushes during summer.

These are excellent for recovering from hard pruning and form a dense hedge.

Have a great week.

Gareth Carter is the general manager of Springvale Garden Centre in Whanganui.